Is the ideal multi-way a 3-way with limited bass?

I like my 12" Tannoy HPD Dual Concentric, they do a great job in my large room. Oh, it's a two way, by the way.

... ideal ... or tradeoff in bass implementation ... ?

Perhaps, but it really comes down to acoustical design of the speaker and materials, and while I think 3 is somewhat ideal at this point, I would say for similar and different reasons.

I agree on the issue of doppler distortion, even though there are some good 2 ways with relative deep bass and high cutoff frequencies.

Smooth dispersion without resonances off-axis is critical in my mind, which also calls for limited bandwidth per speaker, though acoustical methods such as Paradigm uses for dispersion and materials like Magico uses allow good wider bandwidths per speaker than practical in the past.

And even if we talk about a woofer, should it be one big or two small? I lean towards multiple small as it keeps the dispersion closer at the crossover point.  I like to have that next crossover out of most of the vocal range if I can.

I may have found the perfect 3-way in Revel Gem2. Standing free in the room they produce nothing below 80-90 Hz. Which is perfect. With some dirac processing and three high-quality subs you have a fabulous full-range sound. 

How about Rega’s side firing bass driver? This seems to be a great implementation in a floor stander allowing flexibility and tuning to the room. 

Like the looks of those gosta. When things are normal again, may have to go find those. I have been looking for a good high end home theater speaker.

You are always trying to make smallish speakers more than they are.  :(

Doug:

I'm actually trying to talk about what right-sized speakers are when we are outside of anechoic chambers.

Deep, powerful, low distortion bass is more than about inches.  This particular thread is not about small speakers, actually.  It's about large speakers with limited bass specs. 
Buyers focus too much on -3 dB points being lower, without considering the room and modes.  A speaker with a big 12" woofer(s), but high-ish -3dB point might actually be ideal.  
Best,
E

By the way @douglas_schroeder, the best way to counter any narratives you might perceive from me is to counter with your own experiences.

Always happy to hear first hand success stories from other audiophiles.

Look at my system and learn. One of the biggest mistakes perpetuated is the " right sized" speaker for the room. Nice way to massively,  inherently downgrade experience.  Free of bass issues, so lose out on everything else. Not my idea of better.  :)

45hz and down is a good place to start... NOW get rid of all of it...
unless space is a serious issue. 250-300 hz and down.

The larger the driver surface the more prone it is to distortion. IF you control what comes back to hit the cone surface (phase plugs), AND narrow the driver baffle surface, thing change a LOT in bass region.
Larger drivers work great.  Still have a baffle to contend with. It's hard to make that box go away.. I'll give it a -6 not -3 for baffle (bass) gain, with a 6 db first order. 24db with a low notch maybe a -3  (the baffle is a pain). and a huge contribution in the distortion column.

I'll try it.. simple enough.  Opps, Forgot.. I already did, yup sure did...
separate boxes and columns, MUCH better SQ, just a bit more real estate.

Your speaker description reminds me of the monitors of 70-80, huge bass drivers, double mids, double highs.. I still have a few.. QSO 808s by VMPS..

Infinity with their SM series...they were everywhere...

Regards

 

It is only in your mind.Take a week off.

Of sorts. Using dynamic drivers the best approach IMHO is a two way with subwoofers. You only need one crossover (not including the sub) and you can usually put it up around 2500-3000 Hz where it will not be as audible. With a two way you can do an open baffle design, easy to make. Use two midbass/midrange drivers and one tweeter in a D' Appolito configuration. 12 db/oct Linkwitz-Riley crossover. Two double 15" subwoofers and you are off to the races.
With Horns I think you are stuck with 3 way and a sub.
But, with ESLs you can do one way with a sub. Some people will opine you do not need the sub and with very large ESLs this is true. But, distortion levels are even lower if you use a subwoofer system correctly. And you can increase your headroom at least 10 dB. That is double the volume!

Imo, more impressive soundstage is only one advantage of larger speakers. Having owned several small/bookshelf speakers and small floor standers over the decades, there is no way I would opt for them in pursuit of superior sound and experience. They are a fundamental compromise, imo too often made out of fear of bass issues. I would far rather struggle with bass (the exception being a perfectly square, small room) than divorce all the benefits of bigger speakers. It's literally like eschewing half the glory of HiFi.  

It's much more about the size of the listening room than the size of the woofer(s). As you've got two variables in play, I don't see how you can arrive at any firm general conclusion.  Rather you'd have to say, for a room of X size, Y size, etc.

I've been advocating something like this for a while, since really there isn't much point to making a speaker go down to 20Hz since standing waves 'stand' a good chance of causing the bass to not be right at the listening chair.


A Distributed Bass Array (like the Swarm from audiokinesis.com) can take make the deep bass and break up standing waves. As long as the speaker can make it below about 60Hz or so and the DBA set up to not go above 80Hz, the main speakers will convince you that the bass notes are coming from in front of you and there won't be any bass problems, right down to 20Hz (at least in the case of the Swarm). The only issue I see that could be a problem is out-of-band bass messing with the woofer in the main speaker. But otherwise you should be able to put something together that would rival a speaker that costs in 5 or 6 figures unless your room was enormous.

Perfect sound reproduction requires flat response 20-20khz. Anything less is WRONG. 
If you want perfect transients you do a 1 way full range cone. If you want more highs you do a 2 way. If you want a bit more mids you do a 3way. Its not rocket science. Open baffles are WRONG which is why we have box speakers in the first place. Use your brain. It is not rocket science. If you want to be a master tuner you need to learn how to listen. If you want good bass get yourself a better room dont blame the speakers. No such thing as dopler distortion. Have you ever heard John atkinson criticize how terrible all these 2way speakers sound due to dopler distortion? Never. Get real and stop complaining.

Wow, I stand corrected... Go get um.. K.

Kmini, KMAX on the way...

You feel better now, I know the forum deletion, was a weird one...

Just weird...

Regards

Wait wait, last week we were all schooled that all speakers sound exactly the same.  Now we are being educated in how different speakers sound different depending on how they are built?

When will the madness end??

The "ideal" is an indibualistic thing.
I fail to see any enlightenment here.

Was that an attempt to say "individualistic"? 

Wait wait, last week we were all schooled that all speakers sound exactly the same. Now we are being educated in how different speakers sound different depending on how they are built?

When will the madness end??

The differences that are reported are partly psychological. Some differences are real but are a result of POOR SPEAKER DESIGN. 
Now once you remove these, you are left with one conclusion. All speakers sound the same. REPEAT ten times after me. All speakers are the same and they SURE AS HELL SHOULD BE

What situation, other than aesthetics, will a huge floor stander be superior to relatively full range speaker as erik has described coupled with good subs?  The only case would be if the ideal place for the subs just happened to coincide with the location of the floor standers. That will rarely be the case.

kenjit1,170 posts11-13-2020 2:11pmPerfect sound reproduction requires flat response 20-20khz. Anything less is WRONG.

Perhaps you can explain to me kenjit, what, other than a digital audio chain and amplifiers have a flat 20-20KHz response in music recreation?  I can tell you that microphones don't. I can tell you that previously tape recorders did not.  I can tell you the recording and mastering engineer will rarely not play with frequency response. I can tell you that most recordings are done with a microphone close to the instrument or singer so the response is artificial already.

Now don't get me wrong, flat response in the right room sounds wrong, but perfect flat response isn't going to happen.

K, now don’t mix the pills up again. That’s one red and one green, not the red and green, that for constipation... ;-0

10 is way to many any ways.. I’ll try 5, can we cut a deal on that and go for a flat, two and a studer?.. Da, da ,done!

Control yourself man... LOL This is a pubic, bone.. ops...Public, forum!! :-)

One more thing K... The doppler, is transient, not all speakers do it, but it's real just like lobing, ringing and all kinds of design issues...NOT addressed by every speaker designer...$$$$$$$ is money right... Stuff cost money.. You get what you pay for sometimes.. or better yet Make for yourself...

Regards

oldhvymec,
Any speaker with a moving diaphragm will have doppler distortion. It is not transient, it is any time one driver is playing multiple frequencies. Reducing the travel of the travel for the same sound level will of course reduce the doppler distortion.  Reducing the frequency range of any given driver will reduce it.

This is just my two cents worth.  My room is a converted dining room.  It is not large and I wanted to hear full orchestra and rock out to The Who as well.   I found most large speakers, capable of such output have very little or no adjustability in the bass.  As a result, I have found, common wisdom is you have to match the speaker to the room, or use EQ and big bass traps.  I have enjoyed a number of satellite speakers with subwoofers of various brands, and carefully executed, they work well but I always found a disconnect in tonal accuracy.  Recently I walked into a dealer that introduced me to Vandersteen speakers with built-in and adjustable subwoofers.  Since I have never seen this idea in an analog based speaker, I decided to give them a try and ended up buying a pair of Quatro CTs, after trying them at home.  I was pleased to see that my room measures well in most low frequencies, but I did have to boost a bit at 20 hertz and take out a bit at 80 hertz.  The speaker made it possible.  EQ's have a bad name with purists because of phase shifts.  Since Vandersteen has put so much effort into being phase correct and devoloping the necessary driver technology to make that possible, I am certian they would not "mess it up" with the controls in the bass.  So far so good.  I am into them for a few months now.  This is one answer to your question and the right one for me.  I hope you find your solution as well.

Hi @jamesbgood

Yes, that works really really well. I’ve gotten to hear Vandersteens with the built in EQ/subwoofer and as far as I can remember, they are the ONLY full sized floor standing speaker I’ve ever heard worth a damn in a hotel room.

I have personally had really good results with a sub/eq and bass traps in a room as well, but what a giant PITA to set up right.  I doubt most people can consistently achieve such good results.

Best,

Erik

There's something to be said for huge woofers and not making them dig too deep would be easier to drive. I think stereophile reviewed a pair of cerwyn vega x215's

There's something to be said for huge woofers and not making them dig too deep would be easier to drive

I certainly don't find this to be the case! My speakers are 98dB, 16 ohms and are flat at 20Hz owing to dual 15" TAD woofers. 

If you can afford it all you can have it all.

I agree with jamesbgood. If there IS an ideal, imo it probably includes adjustable bass.

Several manufacturers use powered woofer sections which include a lot of adjustability, but often a ported box is more adjustable than it seems at first glance. Port cross-sectional areas can be reduced, which lowers the tuning frequency and tightens up the bottom end. Or if the speaker has multiple ports, perhaps one or more can be outright plugged, again lowering the tuning frequency and tightening up the bass. Or open-cell foam can be placed in the port to reduce the airflow. Any of these approaches will almost inevitably involve some trial-and-error, but they can make a worthwhile difference in whether or not a given speaker works well in a situation where its low-end is excessive.

Duke